


Traditions

by luoup (ravenic)



Series: Team the Best Team [Platonic VLD Week 2.0] [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-24 04:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15622644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: Day 2 Prompt 1: TraditionsSmall things become traditions, after so many years.





	Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> this prompt literally fought me for an entire year. i ditched the first idea and blundered my way through this one. short and blithery again, but i am so tired of it that i no longer care. bloof.

Many years ago, five Human teenagers ended up in space.  Whether it was fated destiny or just really bizarre coincidence, they became the universe’s most powerful weapon. 

It’s been a long time.  They all had to grow up too fast to fight a war older than their species’ written history, but they’re really adults now, even by Earth’s official standards. 

They’ve been fighting this war for a long time.  It’s like Heracles and the Hydra – cut off one head and two more grow back.  The Galra Empire has had ten thousand years to establish itself, and five Humans aren’t going to defeat it easily.  They have allies now, they’re making real progress and not every head is replaced by two, but this work is nowhere near done. 

They’re somewhat resigned to the knowledge that they will probably spend the rest of their lives in space.  Earth is involved now, although Humans are relatively primitive in their technology and can’t do much to help.  But the Paladins are always needed for one thing or another, and they all know that they will probably die out here, fighting a war that they didn’t know about until they were already in it. 

Nothing is stable during war.  But even the inhabitants of the Castle of Lions have their traditions. 

Little things have become ritual after so many years.  It’s a way to keep themselves and each other together.  They go on missions and they go to meetings and they fight and they negotiate and it’s never going to end, so they take what they can get, when they can get it. 

It’s unspoken law in the castle that whoever is there comes to meals.  It’s a small thing, insignificant in the grand scheme of saving the universe.  But food is important for humans, important for family, and unless literal lives are in danger everyone stops what they are doing and comes to eat together if they are physically anywhere in the castle.  Sometimes someone is away on a mission, or in the medbay or engine rooms trying to work miracles on fading lives or failing machinery.  But otherwise – Pidge stops whatever she’s working on, Keith comes out of the training deck, Allura leaves her planning, and everyone convenes in the kitchen.  They help prepare when they can (except Shiro – not even Hunk can get him to make something edible.  Shiro sits at the counter and talks with whoever’s cooking), or they just come to eat.  But except in cases of dire need, everyone always eats together. 

They sleep together too.  Just sleeping.  Romantic relationships have happened occasionally, within the team or externally, but the Paladin bond is stronger than that.  Just the physical presence of the others is enough to lull any of them to sleep, and to keep the nightmares they all have at bay.  Sometimes it’s just two or three, while other times all five (and Allura, whenever she can) pile together in a heap of blankets and kicking feet.  It’s the most soothing thing they’ve ever known. 

There are other things, small rituals that they do in little groups.  Insignificant to outsiders, but the actions speak volumes to them and that’s all that matters.  Lance does Shiro’s makeup before big diplomatic events.  Hunk rubs Pidge’s back after she pulls all-nighters digging through Empire data.  Lance and Allura watch alien dramas and trash-talk at the characters onscreen while they eat their way through all of Hunk’s snacks.  Shiro and Hunk do tai chi together, mixing in pieces of similar concepts from a handful of alien races they’ve met over the years.  Lance and Keith trade weird books they’ve picked up across the universe, forming the strangest book club the castle may have ever seen.  Allura brushes Pidge’s hair during quiet evenings, always amazed at how long it’s gotten.  Keith and Shiro go stargazing whenever the castle is landed on a planet far enough from city lights.  Pidge and Keith play the weirdest game of parkour tag through the entire castle (sometimes in isolated decks with the gravity turned off), and sometimes Shiro or one of the Legs join in, too. 

Sometimes they forget that they weren’t always Voltron.  They’re so close now, living together and almost sharing minds through the Paladin bond.  The work of Voltron takes up so much time and energy, making it even more important that they just spend time together sometimes, resting in each other’s presences.  They’ve carved out these little spaces, bits and scraps of ordinary life in between history-changing alliance conferences and life-threatening battles.  Voltron will always be the most important thing.  They will always have more work to do.  But they’ll enjoy what they can, what they have together, in tiny traditions and rituals as precious as any star. 


End file.
